A charade (in the french meaning) is a riddle in which one must
find a multi-syllabic word separated in its constituent syllables
which in themselves are words (phonetically speaking).
It doesn't seem to be in use in english-speaking countries, as
english words often are composed words as doorkeeper, doubtful,
toothbrush, et al.
Anyway, just to get the idea, let us say that the word to find is doorbell. You could then say :
My first one can be slammed
My second one can be tolled
You can ring the whole
Of course, it doesn't really work as it is based on words (door and bell) which keep their meaning in the final word. It should be based on the sound of the syllables which in themselves should sound like self-standing words with different meanings, that is to say homonyms.
Let us now take an exemple in french :
My first one is not high (bas
= low)
My second one is not late (tôt = early)
The whole floats (bateau = boat)
As you can see, the gist of it is to find homonyms for the constituent syllables.
SHARAD' is a small expression
game played in teams in which you invent charades.
First, divide the players in two teams.
Secondly, single out one player from each team, they will be the
speakers.
Thirdly, the speakers draw a word at random.
Fourthly, they will make the other players guess the word.
Fifthly, the first team which finds the word scores as many points
as the word has syllables.
But... each speaker upon his turn will define part of the charade.
If they have a 3 syllables word, the first speaker says "my
first one...", the second speaker says "my second one...",
the first speaker says "my third one..." and the second
speaker ends with "the whole...".
A speaker can hinder his co-speaker ; it depends on the way he
chooses to chop the word in different words ; thus, for example,
a 3 syllables word can be chopped in 3 words or in 2, one of those
being a two-syllables word. (In this case, the winning team will
still score 3 points.)
So, you get two different contests, one between the "guessing"
players, and the other between the speakers.
Of course, when a new word is
drawn, you change speakers.
Of course, the words are specially chosen to make it easy.
Of course, it is not so easy at all...
· SHARAD' was designed
by me
· Artwork : Dominique Granger
· Publisher : La Haute Roche
· For 4 to 12 players 12 years old and up
© 2002
